Safehouse Seventeen
by DJLiopleurodon
Summary: Clint makes a heartbreaking discovery when he goes to Iowa to visit his family.
1. Chapter 1

_trigger warning: brief mention of suicidal ideation._

 **I refuse to let my ship get wrecked! Damn you Whedon! (you annoying, sublime genius!)**

* * *

 _Clint Barton watched the freight train vanish around the bend before crossing the misty fields toward the farm. Covering the last thirty miles between the small town motel and the old homestead by stowing away on a box car felt like the final link in the chain of secrets he had forged to protect his family._

 _He didn't think anyone was following him, but the high profile of the Avengers made keeping secrets hard for even their least visible member. Not only did he have to worry about Eastern European gangsters tracking him, now he had to evade fucking TMZ as well. He would feel bad if he had to drop a paparazzo or two, but not_ THAT _bad._

 _He waved away a persistent insect as he crested the hill and absorbed the view of his home. The scudding clouds obscured the moon and in the wavering shadows, he thought he could see the crumbling facade of his family farm looking as it had before he and his wife had fixed it up._

 _Bit by bit, Laura and he had restored the ramshackle house. Under their handiwork and dedication, the nightmare of his childhood had been replaced by this sheltered utopia. Laura ran the farm and he came home as often as he could and played with his kids, worked on the house, basked in the idyllic peace of the chaos of the days and made love to his wife each night._

 _The moon emerged and bathed the old house in light; revealing the sanctuary they had created for their children, far from the peril of his job and safe from the threat of exposure._

 _Safe._

 _He wondered if there were leftovers in the refrigerator, but his aching hunger was quickly supplanted by his desire to hold Laura in his arms and kiss his sleeping children._

* * *

Natasha sprinted up the gravel driveway toward the anguished cry; still not sure how he got here before she had.

She found him crumpled in the open doorway, a heap on the decaying porch. Clint stared unfocused at the stained floor boards, his P30 unholstered as he flicked the safety on and off. He didn't look up when she said his name; didn't resist when she gripped the barrel of the gun and eased it from his hand.

"They're gone," he said flatly.

She doubted she'd completely disarmed him, but taking his high-calibre sidearm still flooded her with relief. She checked the chamber, removed the clip and stowed both out of reach before folding her distraught partner in an embrace.

"No, Clint," she said gently as he buried his face in the crook of her neck, "they were never here. Ever. There is no Laura, no kids, no farm. It's not real; none of it. This...," she hesitated and cast a sad glance around and stroked his back, the light cotton of his shirt clinging to his skin in the damp air. "There is nothing here, it's all a false memory. You have no children and you never have. This _is_ the house you grew up in, but no one has lived here in thirty years. I'm so sorry."

The moonlight caught the thin tracks trailing down his cheeks. She wiped the wetness away with her thumb. His lashes clung in clumps as he saw the house as it truly was: years of detritus and debris strewn on the floors, ancient wallpaper dangling from the walls in mildewed strips and the moth-eaten curtains rotting off rusting rods. Just an old, abandoned house; not a home. Not his home.

"...Loki." His voice shook with a cocktail of rage and sorrow.

Natasha nodded. "He did it to punish us. To torture you when you remembered the truth and..." She swallowed thickly to keep her voice even. "And to take you away from me."

"Is that why you took my P30? You think I'm going to blow my brains out."

She let his blunt words glance off her but held him tighter as he voiced the worry that had shouted at her wordlessly for the entire duration of her breathless pursuit.

"Fuck," he declared, realizing that he had been considering it, "thanks, but I'm ok." He hauled himself up and paced the length of the creaking porch; trying to pull the false memories out like broken teeth. His boot scraped across a protruding nail head and he remembered teaching Cooper how to remove a rusted nail without tearing up the surrounding wood by pulling out this exact one and replacing it. The image of his son's intent face as he absorbed this simple lesson slammed Clint so hard in the gut he had to brace on the railing for support. After fighting the wave of nausea and tilting vertigo, his world fully righted itself and the false reality became so clearly that: false.

With the spell broken, it was easy to sort the fabricated memories and the reconstructed ones from the true events. The fake ones popped like soap bubbles when he reached for them. At the thought of that metaphor, a memory of his children playing upstairs in the claw foot tub, foamy soap stacked to make elaborate hairstyles and asymmetrical beards on their little faces, rose up in his mind and then shattered at Lila's joyful cry of "Daddy!" That single moment snagged in his chest before it, too, evaporated.

Maybe it was a good thing Tasha took his gun. He ached for the weight of it, for the tension of the bowstring, for the pressure of his quiver across his chest and his holster on his thigh.

As it all crushed back, it became obvious; the amount of time he spends in New York and on missions... "How have I even been functioning?" he asked.

"As nearly as I can tell, you wake up some days with a memory of a week or two spent here, usually right before or after a mission so you never seem to notice the chronological impossibility."

"So, all of you have known. How long?" His voice took on a confrontational edge and she remained crouched in the doorway as he paced.

"Fury and I knew right away. The others," she cleared her throat, "... just after Ultron."

"How did _that_ work... I brought them all here. I _fucking_ _remember_ that like it was yesterday. If not here, where?"

"We did come here. I was so messed up, I didn't realize where you were bringing us until it was too late. I expected you to lose it, but you were... fine." She looked to see if he bristled at the implication that he was not fine now, but it was clear that he was not.

"You brought us all here and we regrouped—the upstairs is in better shape, so we were able to stay here. You never mentioned Laura or the kids. You just said it was a safehouse. Fury met us here and we..." She shrugged and brushed a lock of hair from her face as he gestured that he understood and to continue.

"And then a few weeks later, you started talking about your wife getting Tony to fix your tractor and your son following Steve around and Thor letting your daughter brush his hair. I... I didn't know what to make of it." He looked incredulous, shoulders tense and his white knuckles threatening to crush the old railing.

"Wanda thinks that her powers may have interrupted the spell," she continued, "or that your brain knew that you couldn't fall apart because the rest of us already had, so you didn't. She wasn't there, obviously, so no one really knows. We can't explain it and we couldn't dig into without you knowing the truth."

"Why am I still on the team? How can you, _any of you_ , trust me knowing that he is _STILL_ fucking with my head?" Frustration and despair started to coalesce into anger at anyone complicit in this charade. "You've just been riding it out. Waiting for this moment? Why?"

 _Say it,_ she thought, _he needs to know..._

"You've all just been humoring me?" he accused, "you all smile and nod when I talk about my non-existent family?"

"You don't talk about them. Not to anyone but... me." Her voice nearly cracked at the last word and he regarded her, his confusion so comical she wanted to punch him.

"But…. you and Bruce?"

"Fucking-A, Clint," she laughed without mirth. "I think you came up with that to explain why I withdrew from you so much."

"You seemed so sad..." she looked at him miserably. "Oh…." he whispered and the last bits of memory clicked into place.

"You loved your wife and family. Not me. You forgot me. You were still here, but you were...gone." She placed a shaking hand on his arm, taking comfort in his solid presence. The second part of her explanation finally penetrated the cloud of his own pain:

' _Loki did it to punish_ **us** _... To take you away from_ _ **me.**_ _'_

"Oh, Tasha, I'm so sorry. I'm back. I'm here." He finally saw her and the stark reflection of his own loss in her eyes. "It's over now. I'm sorry. I remember. I remember. I'm here..." He repeated these professions like a mantra as he gathered her in and held tightly.

Her face flushed and she pursed her mouth against the words she knew she should say, but she couldn't. Not again. Not then. She just couldn't do it.

He studied her and noted the uncertainty in her eyes. Decidedly, he kissed her, cupping her face and pretending not to notice the brimming, unshed tears.

* * *

She shifted her weight as she eased off the clutch and onto the deserted highway. Her thighs ached with the urgency of their reunion and her skin felt pleasantly sensitive even a few hours after she had disentangled her legs from his.

Clint dropped into a deep sleep as soon as he climbed into the passenger seat and still slumbered, emotionally-exsanguinated. Making love in the back of the converted government-issue SUV shouldn't have been as erotic or as stupidly tender as that but she relished the stolen moment with him. She released the gear shift and rested her hand on his thigh. He grunted and covered her hand with his and slept on.

The sun rose over the farm lands, burning off the mist and speckling the dew on spring buds with bursts of gold. Clint stirred as more cars join them on the road. He blinked around, stretched, saw her and smiled at his friend. "Morning. That was too short a visit, but at least I finished up the nursery. I'm glad you could see it. What did you think? Laura wants to move Nathaniel in there next week."

Her heart sank; she didn't even get four hours with him. Seventeen times she'd been through this and it hurt just as much as the first time. Each time she picked up the pieces, it got harder, knowing that the spell would soon take him again. Each revelation was the first and only time for him, but its cumulative effect on her was a vice at her throat.

Clint rooted around in the console for a bottle of water and a protein bar and continued, "I know what I need to do. A treehouse! Cooper's always wanted one. Do you think the oak in the back pasture is too far from the house? And I still haven't finished Lila's dollhouse. I was going to paint it white like the farmhouse but now I'm thinkin' blue. What do you think, Nat?"

Natasha fumbled her oversize sunglasses over her eyes to hide the twitch of emotion and forced her lips to smile. He did not notice the defensive change in her posture. That alone would have been enough to let her know the veil had already settled over him; Clint—her Clint—was ever attuned to her body language, the slightest shift communicating more than her words ever did. Laura's husband blithely ignored her body in almost every way imaginable.

She steadied her voice and answered, "I think blue would be perfect."

* * *

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

A few miles from the base, Clint asked Natasha to pull over somewhere that served "real coffee."

"The usual?" he asked as he climbed out, cheerfully anticipating caffeine and more refreshed than he had any right to be.

She nodded and wondered what he'd bring back. His memory for details was sharp, even right after one of these "events", except when the details pertained to her. Peppermint mocha, herbal tea, black coffee or, God-forbid, a PSL ... Anything was possible.

She might even get what she actually wanted—a tall double-shot Americano with 4 sugars.

Whatever. She wasn't really in the mood for coffee anyway.

As soon as he was inside, she grabbed her phone and texted:

 _Number 17. Had to take the gun out of his hand this time. Not the worst one ever, but bad. Relapse within 4 hours._

Vision's instantaneous response: _I do not believe it is within my power to undo what was done. I am sorry._

was followed by Steve's: _Glad he's OK. Come back to HQ. We will sort this out, Natasha._

and, finally from Wanda: _I have an idea but it is not what you would wish._

Natasha stowed her phone as Clint opened the passenger door, balancing the two cups, one on top of the other and grinning around the two pastry bags he held in his teeth. He indicated that the top cup was hers and she took it and one of the scones.

"They didn't have that pumpkin thing you like, so I just got you a regular coffee. Lotsa cream, no sugar, right?"

Something had to be done.


	3. Chapter 3

Natasha's quarters at HQ felt painfully empty when she awoke after the long nap. She and Clint had always maintained separate residences, but she had grown so accustomed to having his clutter everywhere that this new lodging totally devoid of him didn't feel right. Fatigue dogged her terribly, but she felt revived enough to meet with her two teammates.

Vision, Wanda and she convened in a small conference room that evening. Wanda looked childlike in loose workout clothes, her hair pulled back and her heavy eye make-up smudged with sweat. Her lower lip was swollen and she was holding a glass of ice water against it.

"Training accident?" Natasha asked calmly, as if it were incidental that Wanda had spent the last few hours doing PT with Clint. After losing Pietro, Wanda had leaned toward Clint as a surrogate brother. He had genially accepted the role and was helping her improve her fighting technique. Natasha wondered if she knew how lucky she was to have such a patient and skilled teacher.

And she wondered if she had any right to be jealous. It seemed like more than she could manage at this moment.

Wanda nodded and winced, patting a tissue on the injury and checking it for blood.

"You gotta watch him," Natasha said, "he almost broke my nose 'demonstrating' a right cross block to a group of recruits once. You ok?"

"Still very sore. What did you do about it?" she asked, her accent mixing up her 'w's and 'v's.

"A front thrust kick to the solar plexus is always good for teaching manners. I'll show you some time."

Both women regarded each other, acknowledging the tension. They each cared for Clint and they both knew that this cycle had to stop and that the ideal solution wasn't in the cards.

Vision, polite enough to know humans generally engaged in small talk at the start of meetings but too blunt to let it go on indefinitely, cut to the heart of the matter as soon as Natasha sat down: "I have been exploring the limits of my abilities. I can not undo what the mind stone did to Barton. I can not remove the false memories without running the risk of severely compromising his mind. He would most likely survive, but he would not be the man you knew."

"He's not the man you knew now, though, is he, my friend?" Wanda asked, sympathy sitting oddly in her fierce eyes.

Natasha stared blankly at these two strange beings, both miraculous creations who became something very different than any of their meddling creators had intended. Vision's presence, otherworldly irises and formal manner coupled with the ethereal power of the gem made him seem ancient. Yet he also seemed so guileless compared with the keen, indomitable young woman beside him.

The android continued, "There is another possibility. Wanda and I believe we could combine our abilities to help him. It would, however, require some grave sacrifice on your part."

Natasha sat forward, alert and ready to agree until she considered the expression of pity on the Scarlet Witch's face.

"What do you need from me," she asked, wary of anything that concerned the Sokovian that much.

"Give him up," she said, "You would have to let him go." Natasha bowed her head; not at all surprised by the pronouncement, but the words still hurt.

"His family are creations of the mind stone. I think that Wanda's reality-altering abilities could amplify that."

Natasha reached for a glass of water, noted the shaking of her hands and tucked them back in her lap. She looked from one to the other. "Meaning?"

"We can not remove the false memories, but we can make them a reality."

"You are saying you can make Laura and the children real? If your powers work like that ..."

"Why don't I bring back my brother?" Wanda said coldly, as she poured some water and slid the glass across the table toward Natasha.

"I'm sorry. I..." Natasha shrugged uncomfortably, knowing that it wasn't a polite thing to ask but not exactly regretting that she'd said it.

"It is a valid question," Wanda conceded. Her strange accent was rendered more so since she had begun to pick up Vision's more rounded consonants and blended his unusual speech cadence with her own rhythm. Natasha focused on the other woman's diction because the words were making her head pound.

"It does not work like that. My brother was a real human being. Clint's family… they are not. But we can make them so."

"Is SHIELD ok with this? With you _creating_ people?"

"Did Tony Stark ask SHIELD when he created him?" Wanda indicated Vision with a wave and left her hand resting on his forearm, the gesture steeped in easy intimacy.

"Then what do you need from me?"

"Your blessing," human emotion still sounded odd in Jarvis' voice but was unmistakably genuine. He flicked his gaze to her face and then looked away over her head. "We do not need to ask Barton; we are sure that this is what he desires."

"Natasha," Wanda touched her shoulder, her voice full of regret, "Thor's brother did not use the scepter to create a random family to drive you and Clint apart. He needed to force Clint's compliance. He created an insurance policy of sorts. He gave him something to live for so he could threaten to take it away in case his mind control failed. Something he could control. The only one that Clint truly cared about was you. Loki could not control _you_ , so he found…."

"...the only thing Clint wanted more than me," Natasha finished.

"When you broke the mind control, you disrupted the memories but could not remove them," Vision explained. "They are too deeply rooted. Had Loki understood the mind stone better, he could have imbedded the mind control as thoroughly. Fortunately, he did not possess the skill to order the stone's power correctly. Loki was an agent of chaos. He used the mind stone clumsily, like a child pounding on a keyboard with a hammer. This… this will require a great deal of finesse and ability to manipulate both chaos and order."

"He is order and I am chaos," Wanda stated, "We can do this."

Those words felt crushingly final, but Natasha was seized by a new concern. "What happens to Clint's real memories? Is it possible that he will continue to relapse between these two sets of realities?"

Vision replied, "while Loki might have been pleased to know how his machinations continue to disrupt your lives, I do not believe that this intermittent memory manipulation was part of a greater revenge scheme. When this is done, it _will be_ his reality. No more relapses."

"I wish I could give him back to you," Wanda held her gaze and her unsettling eyes burned in her pale face. "With all my heart, I do."


	4. Chapter 4

"Don't you think we should ask Barton his opinion on the matter? It's _his_ life we are talking about here after all," Steve assumed his forthright, ready-to-take-the-moral-high-ground posture.

Her hands clenched by her sides. Natasha knew she had a clip of training ammo strapped to her holster; it wouldn't injure Captain America, but it would sting like hell. And she might feel momentarily better after unloading it at his righteous chest.

Steve saw her strange, grim smile and while he didn't know exactly what she was thinking, he correctly surmised she was contemplating violence.

He sat down on the ottoman on the side of the conference room, reminding himself that this was not a policy meeting where the fate of nations was to be discussed; he what here to talk about the lives of two of his friends. He did not want to be Natasha's enemy in this, even if he did not think they would agree. "Let's talk," he said.

She repeated Wanda's explanation; the words like sand in her mouth, her voice fading in and out as she struggled against the emotion that choked her.

"You feel that because Wanda and Vision say this is what Clint wants, you can make that choice for him?" Steve asked, tone neutral.

"He can't have this with me. I _do_ want him, but I can't live that life, even if it were possible. And it's not. Even if I asked them to integrate me into the memory instead of Laura, they can't. And if we don't do something, this _will_ destroy him. You've seen him, like that…" Steve nodded. "I can't do it much more," she whispered, "but if you ask him, he will say no to Wanda's proposal."

"So then why are you even considering it?"

"Goddammit, Steve. You know why."

"I'm sorry," he admitted. "I don't."

"Clint has the chance to have everything he ever wanted. How can I take that from him? Especially when I see what this is doing to him."

"I see what it's doing to you. You love him "

"I do," she said, "and when he is _here_ , he loves me. If the situation were reversed, what do you think he would choose for me?"

Steve looked out the conference room windows into the night. "I know what it's like to love someone like that. I don't want to force an episode on him, but we may have to. I need to think. Can we talk about this tomorrow?"

"I'm not asking your permission, Steve. I'm telling you why I asked them to do it."

* * *

Clint couldn't wait for the train. He parked a few miles away and jogged through the woods and the fields, emerging behind the barn in the back pasture. Laura sat in a rocking chair on the porch, a light blanket shielding the baby from the night insects. He called to her from the edge of the gravel so he didn't startle her but rushed up once she saw him and caught both mother and child in an embrace, ushering them into the flawlessly restored house.

Through the upstairs window, Natasha could see him gently lay the baby in the bassinette and then pull his wife to him. He looked into her face, studying her like he'd never seen her before, which, Natasha thought bitterly, he hadn't. Laura smiled, amused and slightly unnerved at this prolonged scrutiny and interrupted it with a kiss.

Lila padded sleepily into her parent's room and squealed with delight at the unexpected sight of her father. Laura rushed over to soothe the baby back to sleep while Clint hugged his daughter who was covering his face with enthusiastic pecks.

Natasha watched from her distant vantage while Laura took off her light robe and got the little girl settled in the big bed while Clint disappeared from view for a few minutes. When he returned wearing sleep pants and a plain t-shirt and patting his face dry, he went to the window and gazed out into the still Iowa night. He turned and flicked off the light as he passed the doorway. By the time her binoculars had adjusted to night vision, the three were all settled in the bed. Lila's arms twined around Clint's neck as he lay on his side, holding Laura's hand on top of the patchwork quilt.

Before climbing down the tree, Natasha removed her necklace, the fine chain with the gold arrow charm, and hung it from one of the branches, carefully securing the clasp around a sturdy bough.


End file.
